Request ID: FOI-1502-2425 Date published: 27 August 2024
You asked
F/O from 0614-2425
Dear Sir or Madam,
With reference to IRV-059-2425, now that TFL have acknowledged that it is responsible for the installation & maintenance of speed cameras in London both on TLRN and borough roads, please find the following FOI request:
Please could you provide the following information with respect to Endlebury Road, Chingford, E4 and search your records within the following period 01/01/2020 - present.
1) The number of requests TFL has received to consider installing a speed camera on Endlebury Rd, from any party, be it a member of the public, MP or the London Borough of Waltham Forest or otherwise
2) The dates each request was received
3) The name of the organisation that made each request
4) The precise location in which the camera was proposed to be installed, in each request
5) The reason(s) TFL declined, for each request
We answered
TfL Ref: 1502-2425
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 August 2024 asking for information about speed camera requests for Endlebury Road, Chingford, E4.
Your specific request regarding the number of complaints and objections received, has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. You specifically asked: Please could you provide the following information with respect to Endlebury Road, Chingford, E4 and search your records within the following period 01/01/2020 - present.
1) The number of requests TFL has received to consider installing a speed camera on Endlebury Rd, from any party, be it a member of the public, MP or the London Borough of Waltham Forest or otherwise 2) The dates each request was received 3) The name of the organisation that made each request 4) The precise location in which the camera was proposed to be installed, in each request 5) The reason(s) TFL declined, for each request
I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. However, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with requests if we estimate that the cost of determining whether we hold the information, locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would exceed the appropriate limit. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would significantly exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
To explain further, we produced a report of our customer services database covering a three year period January 2021 to July 2024 (noting our data is only retained for a three year period), which produced 984 potential matches for the data you have requested using the keywords of ‘speed camera’ and / or ‘Endlebury’. Please note that there were no cases found in this report where both key words were located in the same record. Whilst the majority of these cases are probably not relevant to a request for a speed camera at this specific location, in order to be sure that we haven’t received a request for that location where the road was not explicitly mentioned, we would have had to manually read the case notes for each entry where the key word speed camera was located to see whether it was relevant to your request. We estimated it would around 4 minutes to locate and read each one. This alone would take over 60 hours, without the additional work required to locate and collate the answers to the additional parts of your request. Please also note that as per our answer to another request under ref 1503-2425, individuals may submit requests for a speed camera to be considered through other avenues, and we have no way of centrally reporting on these. In order for us to check every possible request submitted in all the different ways possible across the period you have asked about would be a further significant task and would be difficult to quantify in any reasonable way. That request and our reply can be viewed here: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1503-2425. Therefore your request is being refused on cost grounds
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request. If you have specific questions relating to these topics we may be more easily able to respond to these than to a request for any information held.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Sara Thomas FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
